


A Good Night

by samchandler1986



Category: GLOW (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Drug Abuse, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-10 08:43:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15945809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samchandler1986/pseuds/samchandler1986
Summary: Sam's not coping well in Vegas.





	A Good Night

“So, says Sam, fumbling a cigarette from the carton in his shirt pocket. “Where to next?”

Ray laughs, a bubbling chuckle. “For me? _Definitely_ bed.”

“Aw, c’mon. It’s what, one am?”

“Exactly. I’ve stayed out till one am, drinking in a strip club with one of LA’s most famous reprobates. Who am I even kidding? My wife’s not gonna let me in bed. I’m going back to the _couch_.”  

Sam lights up. “Sounds like the damage is already done, to me.”

Ray claps him on the shoulder. “I’m out. You have a good rest of the night though.”

“Oh, I will…”

“Night, Sam.”

“Night.”

He watches Ray down the street, finishing his cigarette. Probably he should do the same and head for home. But there’s no wife-warmed bed waiting for him, just another long dark night of the soul.

_What the fuck am I even doing here?_

_Why the fuck am I like this?_

Well, fuck _that_. There’s an easy solution, if you know where to look.

He throws the remains of his cigarette away and heads back inside the strip club; finds a place at the bar, another bourbon. Half-watching the girls in the mirror —he’s only human, after all— but they’re not why he’s come back. Jerking off to some stranger’s body or paying one to fuck him: these are the options on tonight’s table and they are not choices that make him feel good about himself.

He’s after a different sort of oblivion.

So, he sits and sips, watching the groups in and out through the doors. Engaged in a curious kind of ethnographic research, a _Who’s Who_ of the Vegas titty bar. Coming up to two am and the nature of the crowd is shifting. The tourists are leaving for their hotel rooms, and the working stiffs are coming out to play. Magicians and limo-drivers, cabaret acts and stand-up comedians.

The kind of guys he needs, in other words.

* * *

He’s been here before. Not this actual street, of course, but plenty like it. Drunk enough to feel like he’s detached from his body; passing invisible through the dark. It’s like time-travel, back to his very first days in Hollywood. Fresh from college and ready to make _art_. To really shake up the establishment with something _new_ ; something _visceral_ …

Very quickly he had learned that Hollywood did not in fact give a fuck about his ideas, and ninety percent of the art of film-making consisted of being in the right place at the right time and with the right people. So that’s what he set out to do. Talked his way onto set as a runner and set about establishing his reputation as a fixer. A guy who could get you things. And quite often the things people needed, it turned out, where those that put you up, or put your down, or let you see an extra shade on the spectrum.

He crosses the street to avoid a shambling couple, zombie-eyed and gurning toothless, pushing a shopping cart full of plastic bags and filthy blankets. Memory lane for other people probably involves less risk of a mugging. It’s been a long time since he went direct to a dealer. Christ, he remembers really thinking he’d _made it_ , when other people started bringing _him_ the coke. How the mighty have fucking fallen.

He stops at the intersection to check the street names, takes a right. Passes another night time pilgrim, shuffling stoned and stinking back towards the Strip. Things aren’t _that_ bad, he reassures himself.

Sure, he’s fifty-three and looking to score more blow at four in the morning, comparing himself to the strung-out homeless to try and feel less shitty; but he can give it up any time he likes…

He sniffs. The cold night air is making his nose run. Digs in his jacket pocket for a tissue, pulling out a crumpled, blood-stained bar napkin in service. The nose-bleeds are a new development, one he’s put down to the dry desert air. _God_ , what a fucking moron. He shakes his head. He’s not many rungs higher on the ladder than those guys with the shopping cart, not really, and on his way down. Got to end this. Get clean, or at least clean- _er;_  stop feeling sorry for himself and just make the most of the things that are good in his life right now.

It’s not a long list. Justine’s sporadic phone calls. Spending time with Ruth maybe—

He can’t think about her, not right now. Being around her might be the best part of his day, but his car crash attempt to kiss her is a regular feature on the nightly top-ten of reasons to hate himself. And besides, he’s reached the address given to him by one of the comedian kids at the club. It’s do or don’t time; the finger-twitching need he feels leaving him in no doubt as to which option he’s about to pick.

He buzzes flat fourteen.

“Yeah?”

“I’m looking for Jeff,” he says, the open-sesame. “I’m, uh, a friend of Luke's.”

A pause. And then the five best words in the English language as far as he’s concerned right now. “Alright man, come on up.”


End file.
